WinInsider

When Windows XP shipped in October, there was a curious omission that rendered the OS useless to most IT professionals and administrators. With its previous NT-based product, Windows 2000, the company had shipped a set of tools on the product's CD that allowed users with Professional Edition to administer Windows 2000 Server machines from their desktop. This set of tools, dubbed the Administrative Tools Pack, was conspicuously missing from the XP CD, however, and the Windows 2000 versions would not work in XP. After checking with Microsoft several times over the past few weeks, I confirmed that new versions of the tools were on the way.

The FBI is going to new lengths to be sure it can eavesdrop on high-tech communications, secretly building "Magic Lantern" software to monitor computer use. The Magic Lantern technology, part of a broad FBI project called "Cyber Knight," would allow investigators to secretly install over the Internet powerful eavesdropping software that records every keystroke on a person's computer, according to people familiar with the effort.

The software is somewhat similar to so-called trojan software already used illegally by some hackers and corporate spies. The FBI envisions one day using Magic Lantern to record the secret unlocking key a person might use to scramble messages or computer files with encryption software.

Microsoft is starting to open the doors to its eHome division, a unit whose goal is to mesh the PC with home entertainment. The eHome unit was formed earlier this year, but the software giant has been mum about its goals and status. On Monday, Microsoft will begin what could be an effort to make eHome more visible. The Redmond, Wash.-based company recently announced a pact to work with Samsung on a "new breed" of consumer electronics products that will use Samsung hardware and Windows software.

Transistors, the microscopic circuits that animate semiconductors, are going to be flipping off and on a trillion times a second in a few years, a prospect that is forcing Intel back to the drawing board. In a presentation at the International Electron Devices meeting this week in Washington, D.C., the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip giant will shed light on a series of major changes coming to the design of its transistors--culminating in the "Terahertz" transistor in the second half of the decade--that ideally will keep a lid on the growing problem of power consumption.

Overall, the pending chemical and architectural changes will let Intel by 2007 manufacture chips that contain a billion transistors but consume about the same amount of power as today's processors.

Microsoft Corp. today announced that UnumProvident Corp., the leader in disability income protection insurance, has selected Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server as its messaging platform. UnumProvident sought out a solution that could easily be integrated with its existing infrastructure and IT skill level, and increase end-user productivity. Those key metrics combined with a desire to lower cost and ease administration drove UnumProvident's decision to consolidate and migrate the entire company to Exchange 2000.

"With Exchange 2000, we are now able to develop solutions that integrate seamlessly with our Windows- and Office-based desktop," said Chris Bursch, vice president of enrollment technologies, messaging, and office automation at UnumProvident Corp. "This not only allows us to maximize the return on our existing IT talent base, but it improves our agility in delivering applications and solutions to our end users that are consistent, which empowers them to be more productive and provide better service to our customers."

Thanks to ActiveWin for the link

Some of the futuristic technology in Bill Gates' Seattle-area mansion could be heading for less-affluent consumers. That's the hope, at least, of Microsoft's new eHome division, a group formed quietly earlier this year after a yearlong "incubation" period inside the company. The group, which will have its official coming-out Monday at a Microsoft event in Silicon Valley, is focused on improving technology for the home and adapting PC technologies--such as digital music software and photography programs--for consumer electronics devices, such as home stereos or televisions.

Is Microsoft Corp. a do-gooder, or up to no good? That's the question a federal judge in Baltimore will consider on Tuesday at a hearing on the company's billion-dollar antitrust settlement of private, class-action lawsuits.

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz will have to decide whether the settlement proposed by the company is a creative solution that will put computers in the hands of poor school children or a legal ruse that will further the company's dominant position in the computer business.

Difficulties with a stable GPRS platform have forced Sendo to delay shipping its Z100 phone/PDA until the first quarter of next year at the earliest. Earlier this year Microsoft took a stake in UK company Sendo, which makes a variety of mobile phones usually re-branded by others, and which hoped to first have its phone/PDA available for this year. But Sendo said that it will not release the machine, based on the Microsoft 'Stinger' operating system, until it is certain the GPRS platform is reliable and stable.

Inside sources say that Intel may be forced to adopt HyperTransport for its own technology in the near future but oh god, how embarrassing it all is. HyperTransport, pushed hard by AMD and adopted wholesale now by a large number of hi-tech companies, got a knocking from the chip giant around the time of the August Intel Developer Forum but now it looks as though it will have to jump on this bandwagon too. The reason is not to use it with its X86 processor business.

Thanks to ActiveWin for this link

Some small companies are starting to see the light, when it comes to business-to-business e-commerce - including two beta users of Microsoft's Solution for Supplier Enablement. Jeff Odom, president of printing products and services vendor TCS Corporate Services in Richardson, Texas, said any concerns he had about the costs of deploying the Microsoft package are being offset by his access to new markets.

Odom said a growing number of his Fortune 500 customers have been asking his firm to interface to the Ariba and Commerce One e-procurement products they have been installing. But he couldn't find a vendor to help for less than $1 million.